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This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Guilty Crown ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.

A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:

General impression of the series.

Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.

Thoughts about the animation quality.

Characters/Character Design

Voice Acting

Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.

What the show meant to you.

What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.

And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

I don't even recall the exact date when I began looking at the promo art advertising Guilty Crown, but by then I got to know the craze it garnered amongst the fans in these forums when I.G. announced the anime airing on October 2011.

Now, for five consecutive months of episode broadcasting I unintentionally kept myself gullible and thick-headed regarding all the criticism directed at the show's lack of cohesion.
It only hit me until the eighteenth episode to realize what were the writers doing messing up the story.

Is it Guilty Crown recommendable? Probably, but I will warn new viewers to keep their expectations low in regards if the story follows a single direction or not.

But, I do recall that the core component that sucked me right into this franchise was Yuzuriha Inori, nonetheless.
The way they designed her sporting that pink hair, those crimson-ruby eyes, and wearing that revealing Phoenix dress struck within me as a character blended with a unique sensuality but yet remaining pure and child-like innocent from the beginning to the end of the series.
Gosh, I even recalled how I played over and over the first episode before the second got released with rewatching only the parts when Inori was singing; she was an eye-candy, pleasant experience to my senses.

However, I do agree with the rest of the mainstream population that Guilty Crown tumbled and slipped throughout the way for all the factors already stated by more knowledgeable viewers than me who got critical about this animes' faults.

Seriously, for all the mess that he went through the real victim was Gai all along, and it was clear with the last episode that Gai never had a choice, and, moreso with Mana.

I feel in contempt with the writers about the way they handled Mana as a utter antagonistic force without redemption.

Spoiler:

Sure, Gai can hug her as many times as he wishes to make sure she gets saved, happy, and not alone. Nevertheless, Mana became Eve the moment she got first infected by touching the meteor fragment, and from that moment she desired nothing more for her Adam to appear next to her and to start making the new humanity together by erasing the current one with the virus.

Hence, when Shu was expected to be borned Mana had already made her choice, and what does she gets at the end?

She becomes a monster that got rejected not only once but twice by her little brother, but that's because she became an Infected.

Is it Mana's fault turning into something like that, because the Virus had already begun consuming her during her early childhood? For the way the writers executed the last arc, it looked like there was no other choice for Mana but to remain the villain and Devil to destroy the world.

At the end, what happens?

Spoiler:

Sure, Shu gets to save the world but loses his girl.

He lost Hare two episodes after the midway point, and lost Inori eight episodes later only for her to sacrifice herself willingly to save him along with the world.

Shu's supposed to be the Void King, and he should at least have done the impossible to get back to others with his girl, but he wasn't able to.

There are other things which I do not want to go into detail. I'll save those for the coming users that'll be posting in the thread.

Probably, I'm feeling the aftereffects about going a three-days consecutive streak of having finished eight shows for the previous two seasons that have already expired.

Guilty Crown is ok if you manage not to get detracted by its disjointed subplots, and their characters acting out of their character at times, but I do not recommend it to rewatch it again and again save for the shots about Inori singing, and the shots about Mana turning Apocalyptic asymptomatic in psycho mode.

Sorry, if I wasn't able to provide a more enthusiastic review for the overall anime, but I'm burnt today from fatigue.
- Second title of the past autumn 2011 anime season to conclude.
- Got lucky to be the first one who casted the first vote in this thread, BTW.

suggestions:
give more focus to characterization and development of the characters rather than making "big" twists to the plot. as others said, the show seems to "jump the shark" in every other episode with inconsistency with their story and characters, to keep us going WTF, when the whole point of a show is to tell a story instead.

the romance for instance, shoeXinori would feel much more sympathetic and sweet if they did show how their relationship improved. all I saw was shoe angsting and being pathetic while inori just shutting up as a background character. like I said in the ep 21 thread, the lines should have been swapped where shoe would say "inori introduced me to a new world" and inori would say "shoe is a much deeper person than that".
same said to the other pairings. while I myself disagree entirely about darylXtsugumi, they truly wasted their time on this if in the end nothing really happened with either him or tsugumi. sure I dont like him to be with her but only since he has yet to really redeem himself and be a good guy. entire thing was wasted, could have been used for the other "important" characters aka shoeXinori instead of this.

there's also the usage of "timeskip" that seems to happen every other episode. where something "big" happens, next episode we get something like a few days/week have passed rather than seeing it develop right there. this is what makes it hard to swallow in certain times. if we saw how shoe struggled after stopping mana and killing gai, or how he grew more cold overtime after hare died, he'd really feel sympathetic.

all in all, im giving the show 5/10 since the show apparently has good music and visuals. though these didnt really matter for me, I really dont see how this was beautiful/astonishing in comparison with other anime. I only saw "lots of bright colors" with silver(from grabbing voids).
none of the music was really interesting imo. it didnt even land a place in my MP3 while the likes of itsuka tenma and C: the money of soul did. didnt get any "feelings" getting drawn from listening.

they get that score for at least having an interesting theme and good potential that was just wasted. it would get 1 point higher if shoe died with inori for a romantic end, or if shoe realized that his feelings for her were really shallow and that he would live well afterwards.
the show would be along the likes of the typical ecchi/harem shows that were done decently if not for the glaring mistakes. it just suffers worse considering the staff behind this and the hype.

Awesome OPs,awesome OSTs,awesome art style,awesome pace until Episode 15,terribly wasted 7 episodes that are terribly rushed,it should have been at least 10 episodes longer
,it is in a parallel universe and that Guilty Crown,is flipping awesome.

This one? It has so much wasted potential. Knowing that fact is sadder than a Shu left crippled and Inoriless.

I already wrote a review for this, plus I have read everyone else's since this came out. Here's what I said on MyAnimeList (with corrected grammar).

Spoiler for Old Review:

Ah, Guilty Crown. By this point, everyone has already read every single mixed reaction to this anime, a lot of people have reviewed it before it even finished, and everybody pretty much chose what side they were on since Episode 18. In Japan, the BD/DVD sales are decent, the main characters are popular, and the ratings are...well...they're not really that great. Everybody was hyped up upon hearing the dream team assembled for this production and the team behind it declared that this anime was going to be used to define a new generation. Does it succeed? Hell no!

It doesn't even succeed on its own. Guilty Crown hits practically every wrong note, every wrong story choice, every wrong amount of emotions throughout the majority of its 22-episode run. What's left is a visually stunning, but passionless product that feels like Sucker Punch if it was directed by Michael Bay. Every single anime fetish and cliche was crammed into this series with almost none of them used very well, and the beautiful animation is rarely given a chance to tell the story. Instead, the story is told through terribly written dialogue and badly placed narratives that miss the mark on when to give the explanation.

Music-wise, I'm not a huge fan of it. A lot of people like Supercell and the soundtrack they produced for this anime, but it doesn't do much for me. On top of that, while I liked the second opening, I dislike the first opening and both endings. I really don't think the peaceful, whimsical sort of music really suits this show. There is nothing in the show that really warrants that. And don't even get me started on the main girl's singing and how they worked it into the plot. Judging by the translations, all I have to say that I think the songs are pretentious as hell.

Story-wise, the anime is supposed to represent Japan's current status of being ruled over by other countries, except with mechs and diseases from outer space. However, in reality, the story is more about how a boy turned from loser to Jesus. So, it's a coming of age story mixed with Japan's issues, right? Summary-wise, yes. However, once you actually see the story, it becomes very confusing. A majority of the story feels like it was made up the writers as it went, and that's very rarely a good sign. The main character in question goes from one side to another, never picking a position for long and just letting the story control him because he's a slave to the writers. Also, while there are disconnections between the episodes in general, the huge ones occur between the first half, the third-quarter, and the last-quarter of the anime. The first half is a typical wimp turning hero story that's awfully padded with barely anything of substance happening. The third quarter has pacing that is so fast you can't digest the information properly, and to make matters worse, is focused on a story completely different from the first half. The last quarter finds some middle ground, but requires buildup from the first three-quarters to work effectively, and unfortunately it fails at that for the most part. Oh, and practically all of it is plotholed without even attempting to create a world where all the weird and stupid stuff can happen. Some explanations are given (though not very well) and apparently there's a novel that will explain some stuff more, but the anime expects you to roll with its logic for the most part. I'm sorry, but if a character jumps super high, and then never does it again for the rest of the series, despite being given plenty opportunities to do so, you're not creating a very good world.

So, it's basically a mediocre teen story, right? It would be if it wasn't for the goddamn symbolism this show uses. There's so much Christianity shoved into this anime with no attempts at subtlety whatsoever, and this is the part of the story that I actively hated. If you're going to use something as serious as religion in your story, you better do it right, or know what you're talking about. Instead, it was just phoned-in pretentious bullshit that I can only describe as disgusting.

And don't even get me started on the characters that feel like they came from Independence Day. The cast literally goes like this: I'm Shu, and I'm the wimpy hero stereotype. I'm Inori, and I'm the emotionless girl stereotype. I'm Ayase, and I'm the disabled badass stereotype. I'm Tsugumi, and I'm the kooky girl stereotype. I'm Scarface, and I'm the over-the-top villain stereotype. And so on and so forth. And most of them perform their roles very poorly. I have never seen a more unlikeable and inconsistent cast since The Social Network or School Days. None of them ever get out of their stereotype, and half of them don't even fulfill their role all that well. The best characters are just tolerable, while the worst characters are really unlikeable. Especially the three main characters, who feel like cutouts/wish-fulfillment symbols rather than their own individual beings, to the point that I go, "Why are they the mains?". Oh, and the story heavily favors the main character, barely giving more than cliffnotes on everyone else, including the main love interest. It feels like a self-insert fanfiction that thinks that if you make the main as flawed as possible, rather than be a Gary-Stu like most of those types of fanfics, you'll be seen as more relatable and likeable. Well, if that was the plan, then it fucking backfired, didn't it? How about making the character likeable first before you make him flawed? How about making him a character first before you make them a symbol. And how about applying that to every other character while you're at it?

You'll notice I'm not exactly spoiling much with this review (in fact, I barely refer to the characters by name). That's because for all of Guilty Crown's problems, it needs to be seen to be believed. While I am highly against spending money on this series since that just opens the way for sequels and such, I believe everyone should watch this in order to see just how much of a great concept an anime can ruin. I don't hate the show, but it's not something I'd watch more than once. The symbolism and few fresh ideas are executed poorly, the pacing never reaches middle ground, the characters aren't human, but rather what writers think qualify as human, and to top it all off, why spend so much money and effort on the animation if you're not going to let the animation tell the story? I've seen a lot of people say this anime is an entertaining trainwreck/popcorn anime. You know, that's not really a compliment when you look at the production team's goal, right? It's obvious when watching this anime that they're trying to make it good, but they somehow sucked the passion out of it. The only thing I'll give this anime credit for is that it's uniquely bad and it will stick in my mind for a good while, which I guess is a plus. But like all popcorn stuff, you watch it once, you never look back, and you rewatch some much better stuff that you've seen over the past years.

I guess the one thing I can add to this review is that personally, I just couldn't stand the characters in this show. Inori is one of my most hated anime characters due to how soulless she is, along with how poorly she developed feelings, and how she wasn't funny. Shu was a good idea that backfired since I couldn't tell whether his mood swings were from his character or from piss-poor writing. I never really got why people liked Hare, as she just annoyed me. And so on and so forth.

The idea of the voids were pretty cool, but they were never really the main focus in this show. Plus, they were never used in creative ways, but instead were relegated to Deus Ex Machinas that broke their own established rules. Also, that 17 and under rule, really?

I'll probably check out an English dub if the voices are good, as I tend to like characters better when they speak a language I understand, but ever since the anime ended, I just forgot most of what happened and feel sort of empty now. Which I don't think is a good thing. 4/10 for me, which is a shame, because I really wanted to like this show.

badass animation!! I totally enjoy every special effects in this anime... so I'll put a high score for it... Funeral Parlor's battle is very lively and got a badass action!!! love it!

Voice Actors: 9

errr... average actually but good so far... I really like Tsugumi, Ayase, Gai, Inori, and Shu's voice actors... They're picturing every character perfectly

Script: 6

The downfall for this anime.... They SHOULD just end it in episode 13!!
I never expect this anime will turn out like this.... I put a high hope for the second half but it's worse... Shuhrer's scene is painful although it's well-played... After that, everything is better especially when Ouma Kurosu's past are explained
Episode 22 is good so far.... until THAT scene... THAT scene when the crystal shattered and there's still someone still standing there!!!

oh damn! how can they troll the ending like that.... messed up! both of them just need to live together or die together...

Soundtrack: 10

Maybe the best part of this anime.... is the soundtrack... just hear BioS, Euterpe, Departures, My Dearest, etc and you will understand the reason. Supercell is very good

Character Development : 9

yeah... Shu and Inori are developed well... I enjoy it! Weakling Shu and emotionless Inori... now become a 'hero-wannabe' Shu and 'lovely' Inori...
too bad they don't really develop other characters...
others are changed though (Daryl, Ayase, and Arisa)
but others still noob and weak (Yahiro and of course SOUTA)

Enjoyment: 8

at first, I enjoy this a lot... I always wait for every episode patiently... but in second half, I lost every exciting feeling over this anime...
I just feel the same excitement at the final episode (but got shattered just like that)

Emotional Involvement: 9

Shu's sulking moment and his Shuhrer mode is involving lots of emotional moments. Inori's role as Shu's comforter is also involve many emotions... One of main points of this anime. This is not an action scene but mostly are 'emo' moments

Guilty Crown got lots of potential... but they're messed up.. that's all...
8/10 is already highest score I can give for this anime

(many anime got their ending this week but only Shakugan no Shana impressed me a lot... honestly, Zero no Tsukaima's ending is better than Guilty Crown... I'm not a fan of happy ending but I must say Guilty Crown deserved a better ending)

__________________

even if you can't see me, even if you can't hear me, I'll be by your side (Kaname Madoka, 2011)anime listmanga list

Character Design and Art Style
The character design is awesome.. Now I'm fan of redjuice style..
I love how they draw the characters' eyes and shade the skin..
9.5/10

Soundtrack
Soundtrack is a jaw-dropping and total eargasm! Sawano Hiroyuki's arrangements are the best as usual! EGOIST and chelly's divine voice are also awesome!! Actually the soundtrack is the one which introduced me to Guilty Crown
14/10 (russian mode!)

Effects
One of the best.. Love how the lighting effects when the Void is drawn.. It contains innovative line style..
9/10

Overall:
6.5/10 rounded 7.0/10.0

Sorry.. but I judge mostly on the story.. the best anime is the one which can bring satisfaction towards its story.. not bouncing boobs at the final scene and over-bullying towards its MC..

What I wanna say to the director:
"The most important thing is not how you begin something, it is about how you do and finish something nicely"

they could have condensed more the story and storytelling (or lessen more the dialogues) imo to give way for more action scenes especially on the final episode where it seriously lacks it

the problem i see by the haters of the guilty crown is the too much jumping of character development, like one episode Shu will be a winner then next episode his back on being a loser again and the cycle continuous, well for me this is still acceptable considering that his weak minded due to the trauma of his childhood (mentally ill people have more stress/distress intensity than normal people) and also the environment and experiences he encounter each episode amplifies his weak mindedness, and lol Shu must be one of the anime character that suffered so much bad lucks (adversities) if you list the people he have lost

for me its fine if they do not make a second season of this show, the only thing that can be expanded more is the Da'ath organization but the gist of it is already explained, Ayase and Shu are meant (or more likely) to be together too imo from the hints of episode 21 and as some people have pointed out they are a Cripple Combo

and lol at people saying why Inori cannot be revived like Gai, well the facility that revived Gai was destroyed already and also i bet the Da'ath organization holds the science and technology as well as the money to be able to revive someone that has been crystalized

animation quality wise its good the first 6 episodes are very well done its almost as if im watching a movie already the execution of the action are darn good but after episode 6 i felt that the animation quality and overall direction kinda decrease a lot until the last episode so i guess if they want to make another media for Guilty Crown i think 2 movies will be more better, like those 2 movies will be like a remake of the story pattern and story gist of guilty crown

Before even saying anything, I'll just sum it up first...
It sucked. How bad? Enough to actually disgust me. I mean, damn, I know this show was overhyped, but I myself expected that it would AT LEAST be average, but open up this box and you get one of the crappiest story I've ever seen and I've seen bad anime before.

The characters are random... The students go "Yeah Shu!" --> "Die Shu!" --> "Oh I'm sorry for trying to kill you, best buds forever"
Shu's character never stays in one place. One moment he decides to be king(?) and the next episode he is already faltering. He angst about Hare and never mentions her again afterwards. Inori's whole romance with Shuu was because in the first place, she had fell for him randomly as well. Any point with the blond boy x that girl?
The story is bad.,. Last bosses die lamely, lack of explanation in general on what is going on, Mana dances and dies (that's it?), that scientist decides not to escape for some unknown reason, etc.
Half of the times, everything feels forced. Why did Shuu do a evil laugh to end the episode? NO REASON! They completely ignore that scene in the next episode and the Resistance guy is still alive! They didn't even develop the characters and friendship well-enough and yet try to force us to feel for the characters with the BGM. Shuu gets the students to charge to give him time/room to disable the tower... ONLY THAT HE DIDN"T NEED IT!

So was there anything good? The OP/ED wasn't. The 1st ED was actually pretty nice, but the rest was ruined by that singer.
I guess the animation was nice, but only in the battle scenes. The non-moving scenes had some problems later on.

So anyways, without going into every detail (not that I bothered to remember all of them anyways), 1/10.
This anime, summed up in an image, would be something like this:

Spoiler for small image:

__________________

-Blog --> http://tdnshumi.blogspot.com/ (Mainly about video games)
-R.I.P. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Gaming wouldn't have been the same without you (9/19/13)

The major flaw of GC, in my opinion, is its handling of characters. They were handled in such a way that by the end of the series, you can't really sympathize with them or feel emotionally involved, no matter how hard you try. In my opinion, Shu develops the most in the series, considering his role as the main protagonist. He starts off as one of those "wimpy types," transitions into a "dictator" and eventually a tragic hero-like figure. He wasn't likable, for me, but he was developed. But the thing is, I can't name any other character that has enough development to match Shu's. The closest I can say is that of Gai, but his character ended up being screwed up as well.

Spoiler for Bit o' rant...:

The greatest disappointment (in terms of characters) was Inori. She had a great appearance, she was a singer - and that's all! She does absolutely nothing except look pretty, and we don't get a glimpse into her thoughts until episode 18, not to mention her past. Like many of the characters in GC, she was "just there." Thus, when she died in the final episode, I felt nothing, even though the scene was decently executed. This is a real pity; even if GC's plot was terrible or cliched, if the characters had been decently developed, it would probably have fared better.

One of the aspects of GC that drew me in was its prominent staff. With Hiroyuki Yoshino and Ichiro Okouchi as writers, redjuice in charge of the character designs and Supercell and Hiroyuki Sawano doing the series' music, it occurred to me that GC might end up being the blockbuster of the season. Instead, I found myself regretting that I'd expected too much from the show. An example is the introduction of EGOIST into the series, which turns out to be a mere a plot device and extra cream on the cake.

Don't get me started on the script.

But GC isn't brimming full with bad stuff. The score by Hiroyuki Sawano, as well the songs produced by Supercell, results in one of my favourite anime soundtracks of all time; another case where I actually like the OST better than the anime. Songs like My Dearest, Departures to tracks like Euterpe, Bios, Release My Soul and Hill Of Sorrow make the series more memorable than it should be. On another note, the animation is top-notch and renders the Void-pulling and action scenes fluid and in some cases, beautiful to look at.

Overall, GC earns a 5/10 from me. I really tried to like this series, but it just missed the mark for me. If you like pretty visuals and can't care less about the plot, then maybe this is the series for you.

The greatest disappointment (in terms of characters) was Inori. She had a great appearance, she was a singer - and that's all! She does absolutely nothing except look pretty, and we don't get a glimpse into her thoughts until episode 18, not to mention her past. Like many of the characters in GC, she was "just there." Thus, when she died in the final episode, I felt nothing, even though the scene was decently executed. This is a real pity; even if GC's plot was terrible or cliched, if the characters had been decently developed, it would probably have fared better.

I concur. That really is an important part of why the series failed for me, even more-so than the lackluster writing. With Shu in a constant state of flux between uninteresting and just plain annoying, and Inori left without any personality to speak of at all, the leading pair fails to satisfy on anything more than a wholly shallow level.

The plot has a lot of ambition, and that makes it at least interesting, but it fails to ever really capture your attention for any extended period because of the inconsistent writing. It was hard to ever let go of my suspension of disbelief. This was always just a script to me; never a story. The characters hardly felt alive, and the world was paper-thin. The villains were particularly egregious, often seeming like they existed for no other reason than to be mean and evil.

Visually, the series had quite a few things going for it. Inori's character design was a stroke of genius, and overall, the characters looked distinct and had a nice level of detail. The backgrounds looked good and had a interesting style to them, and there were several scenes where the animation was really impressive. Smooth and stylish, I have no complaints in this department.

I actually thought the ending to the show was decent. I'm glad they didn't go with a complete happy-ending cop out. Unfortunately, I was still not able to enjoy it or take in the emotions it was trying to evoke, because at this point it was just too late. I did feel a little sad seeing Shu's fate, but the impact was severely lessened because the characters just didn't matter to me that much. Outside of butchering Tsugumi, there's little they could have done to affect me emotionally.

Overall, the series falls far short of its high ambitions, and comes off as contrived and hard to immerse oneself in. It has visual flare, and some genuinely good moments and episodes here and there, and it has Tsugumi, but there's little here worth revisiting. I don't hate the series, and I did enjoy myself from time to time, so I'm going to round my rating up and give it a 5; amixed bag.

Not only did I got confuse half way through, I think they could make the script muchhh~~ better and i still don't get the significant of the blond guy with the bushy eyebrow. Tho I like the concept of people weapon's match their personality, I think the script need alot of works.

Soundtrack: 9

Egoist music isn't my taste + I don't like the ballad types and was never LOVE Supercell songs either but the OST during the show is good.

Editing: 9

Well done.

Enjoyment: 7

The script kinda made it less enjoyable.

Emotional Involvement: 7

Again. The script fault. Tho I did have a very strong feeling about wanting to punch Shu half way through the show.

The Good:
* Animation and music are phenomenal.
* Endlaves are awesome. I'm still hoping Bandai would release some models or action figures of Steiner and its successor.
* Yahiro, while most people hate him, I think was a good character. He understood the differences between people with power and those without, and how they should act to control others and avoid being controlled. Shu never got those ideas.
* Daryl, while he didn't get much development and was denied a conclusive ending, was a fun character. I think he was a good foil for Shu, as another character who just got pushed around and used by others, except on the opposite side.
* The first half of the show was good in setting up the themes and setting of the story. Episode 20 was the single standout episode of the second half, by finally explaining the full backstory.

The Bad:
* The second half of the show. The Shu in charge and powerless Shu arcs dragged on too long; the final battle deserved at least three episodes.
* Shu's character development. How many times did I think that he's hit bottom, and that the only way to go is up? Three, four, five times? Then after everything, he ends up a disabled bum, with both love interests dead. I can't remember the last the any writer hated on their main character that much. And I can't help but think that this show discourages the idea of heroism.
* Kenji was built up to be a dangerous crazy bomber, but he didn't actually do all that much.
* Daath. This organization/concept/"will of humanity"/"will of natural selection" or whatever it was was introduced very late and poorly elaborated upon.
* Gai as an antagonist. Never mind that his plan all along was a gambit based on Shu regaining his powers and his manhood, at the time of his reintroduction there were already three other villains: Yuu, Segai, and Shuichiro Keido, at least two of whom were already final boss material. The others were pushed aside for Gai and did basically nothing after resurrecting him.
* Haruka. She began as eyecandy, then halfway through she was apparently working willingly with the villains, then she just walked out with the third Void Genome when she felt like it.
* Inori was supposedly a well-known singer, but has only two songs.
* Argo and Kanon were useless characters who accomplished nothing.
* Souta was a loser who deserved much less than what he got at the end.
* ED2, while a good song, does not fit the show.

Final Score: 7/10. I generally reserve scores 5 or less for real dreck (which I refuse to watch), such as the fighting-girls-with-easily-destructable-clothing genre, or sengoku or three kingdoms adaptations, or Xebek ecchi adaptations. I don't think Guilty Crown is that bad.

It is the best part of this anime. It is probably the only reason to re-watch it. The animation is top-notch, and the studio is a rather respected one, at least, for this aspect. But whilst it has lovely animation, it lacks everywhere else but the Soundtrack.

However, I give credit where it is deserved: unlike most anime that have over a twelve-episode run, the animation doesn't vary far. It stays pretty consistent to throughout the whole animation. That says a lot considering nicely animated pieces like Naruto tend to vary often when the studio becomes lazy, especially for filler episodes. And so, this was a nice piece that I say deserved four extra additions to my rating.

Voice Actors: 6/10

Spoiler for voice actors:

The one whom got my highest vote was Nakamura. I've always loved his acting because it seems so realistic. Call me a fangirl but his voice is just lovely. But his acting as Gai despite changes in the character that obviously would make him upset was flawless. I had high expectations of Gai because Nakamura always chooses characters that have dark sides but become good people, or have some traces of humanity in some cases (or is the main character or love interest), but Gai went in the opposite direction. I feel sorry for Nakamura in this way.

Another one I recognize from the cast is Endo. I felt absolutely sorry for her. Her character (Arisa) not only started out horrible but went from bad to worse. And in the end, the girl still didn't get her love interest nor her just deserves (death). Regardless, I felt happy hearing a familiar voice (Sheryl Nome from Macross Frontier).

The two of them had originally been love interests for each other in Macross Frontier (Nakamura as Saotome Alto and Endo as Sheryl Nome); whilst Nakajima did not join this project but is instead working with Nakamura on Aquarion EVOL.

Otherwise, the voice actors really didn't seem to be on board with it all. There wasn't enough emotion in their voices when speaking to make me feel sorry for the characters or make me think them human at all. And that's sad, considering they had a lovely cast there with so much potential.

Script: 2/10

Spoiler for script:

This has to be the lowest rating any show has received from me, even mentally thinking it out, or talking with friends.

The story had no structure. It had plotholes everywhere! The character arcs - if I'd call them that - were both rushed and pointless. None of the love interests got anywhere with the exception of the main, and even that was forced rather than allowed.

There were some good pieces to it. But there were very, very few memorable speeches, lines, or scenes. The most memorable pieces that people often remember are those from the very first two episodes. Otherwise, the whole script is like a large, horrible fanfic that's gone terribly wrong. And I've actually read fanfics by five-year-olds better than this junk.

I'll break it down into sections...

Episode 1: it could literally be a standalone episode, like an OVA. It starts out very structured with a girl whom is found by a boy to be injured and in need of protection, boy takes on this duty, builds teammates, and rescues girl by using otherworldly means. The End. Why continue when it's perfect like that?

But you know they just had to.

Episode 2 - 9: it honestly felt like Sailor Moon: one random mission an episode that took the whole episode only for it to be pointless and become filler, as none of it ever helped. None of the items in which they were hunting down were either ever seen again or useful. It was a bunch of random filler episodes. At least Bleach does filler a bit more justice with a rather captivating storyline that has fewer plotholes than this.

Episode 10 - 12: Probably the best piece of the whole thing besides the first episode. Finally, some characters are explained and introduced. However, the downside to this was the finale of this halfway marker in which it should have been the end. It was so quick and rushed that one doesn't really get to feel whom is the villain and whom is the protagonist. All one can see is a two girls suffering whilst two boys attempt to save them from an evil government and one couple dies whilst the other survives and cries for what reason? The time in which the main villain (or his sister) is introduced isn't long, and so one cannot really grasp her purpose nor her emotions. Her character development is not given much background besides one sole purpose to marry her brother (which is another large flaw).

Episode 13 - 14: more filler, random episodes with no direct means except to build up your appeal to the characters, which failed miserably. I, in no way, was attached to any character other than Hare, whom came off as a rather typical "silent, supportive, and loving stereotype." The filler episodes here only spelled their downfall for the end of the anime, which could've used these two episodes back.

Episode 15 - 17: the worst of the bunch. The characters have gone in the completely opposite direction. Actually, this is where I started to literally accept that every character in this show was some sort of sick psychotic lunatic. Every piece of these three episodes was horrible. And the final episode of this group was both expected and forced.

Episode 18 & 19: probably the worst piece of the series. There are even worse plotholes because of it. The only remarkable pieces of these episodes was the small romantic development between the main couple, which was still slightly forced. It lacked any emotional attachment. But most of these two episodes was emo characters playing out their roles.

Episode 20 - 22: Well, when you start an anime greatly and want to destroy it completely, end it with a nice big bang. As the old saying goes: "if we're gonna go out, let it be with a bang." And they literally did. The whole end is like a big bang. It's like "boom, there it is; it's over, move on and deal with it." And I thought Macross Frontier ended horribly by leaving all of its plot to the last episode; but no, Yoshino made my day - this had to be the worst ending I've ever seen in anime so far. He's outdone himself with that. And oddly enough, people had been defending him over on the Macross forums, yet looking at how Guilty Crown - his creation, if I may - turned out... I think that opinion has just changed.

Overall, I did like Shu and Inori together but felt that it would be best in a normal school drama than in this "war and disease" stereotype. So it saddened me to see that Inori had to die, as she couldn't go into a normal way of life and thus make that about opinion become reality; but I wouldn't have liked if they'd both died, as their characters really didn't deserve what the writers did to them.

Soundtrack: 20/10
The OP and ED are beautiful, both of them, and certain insert songs are just lovely. The music is top-notch. However, the deep, meaningful lyrics would leave most people in confusion. An example is the deep meaning behind My Dearest. To read them is one thing, to understand them is another. There is so much soul-talk in the music that it's almost ridiculous. But regardless, the instrumentals are beautiful.

Editing: 5/10
I felt like some pieces were too cliche. I have a tenancy to take lighting effects to a minimum since it has become so cliched to light up a face instantly when addressing a scene you want to impact the audience. Also, a lot of the editing on the video was unnecessary, like the extra flashes added to certain flashbacks, especially in episode one. However, it was standard, I guess. Not too over the top.

Enjoyment: 1/10
I barely looked forward to each weeks episode and couldn't really feel like Guilty Crown was an anime worth that recognition. Besides its animation, it is literally a facepalm.

Emotional Involvement: 0/10
There weren't enough emotions to be involved...

Overall End Rating: 5/10
DO NOT WATCH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE DISAPPOINTED!!!

I don't give ratings like most people that easily handle out 8~10's for everything they watch. To me 5/10 = okay, 1/10 = bullshit, 9/10 = one of the best I've seen.

Animation Quality: 9/10 (It was pretty convincing for me to start this series. The art style was great, so was animation)Voice Actors: 7/10 (It was okay, most characters have voices that sounds like an annoying useless side characters, but since that is actually how i felt about most characters, it's pretty close)Script: 1/10 (Not much of anything that I can remember after watching except how unbearable it was. These ranged from convoluted monologues that doesn't make sense and do not make a point, something terribly corny, or generic repetitive phrases.)Soundtrack: 8/10 (Hard to talk about describe/comment. It's just how i generally felt about the impact of the bgm and op/ed)Editing: 7/10 (Fairly good, nothing particularly bad)Enjoyment: 2/10 (I can't find this enjoyable past the first 3 episodes, it's miserable throughout)Emotional Involvement: 2/10 (Unrealistic, generic and 1 dimensional. Not unrealistic as in the characters are being fictional. But that they aren't very consistent at being a character.)

5.1. Does not recommend this to anyone. Only if you have absolutely no more titles on your to-watch list. This anime isn't bad enough to kill you.

Gorgeous character designs from Redjuice with great animation by Production IG, the visual effects from drawing out voids was particuarly nice. Overall very little to complain about in this department apart from some off-model art towards the latter 1/3 of the show.

Soundtrack: 9/10

Hiroyuki Sawano delivers a superb soundtrack once again. The songs by Supercell were also excellent although I much preferred the vocalist Chelly(ed1+op2) over Koeda(op1+ed2).

Story: 3/10

The main story ideas (apocalypse virus, voids, endlaves) had some potential but was marred by poor execution throughout.

Script/Writing/Characters: 2/10

Here is Guilty Crown's biggest flaw imo. The writing is inconsistant at best but mostly just plain bad.
Shu was not a likeable lead character for me personally despite getting all the development, everyone else was severely underdeveloped and as a consequence never really felt alive, they felt like tools - only acting as smart or as dumb as the plot requires to move things forward.
Villans were of the cardboard cutout variety, the Da'art thing went nowhere and was brushed aside with a very vague and lazy explaination.
The lack of any truly likeable and sympathetic characters meant that any emotional investment was pretty much non-existant.
Possibly the only redeeming quality was the script could be hilariously bad at times (my king's powerrrrrrr!!! ).

Voice Acting: 6/10

Competent performances all round which is about as much as you could ask for when the script is this bad...

Overall: 3/10

Wasted potential is how I'd sum up Guilty Crown, with better writing this could have been the blockbuster worthy of it's initial hype.
A real shame.

I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but after finally getting onto this I feel some regret. Not regret for watching because I really liked it, but I do regret lurking the Image Thread before starting--that spoiled me on quite a lot of things, frankly I feel cheated and I know it's my fault for looking at a possible bed of spoilers.

Due to my circumstances I could not watch this in its original visual quality, and I have to say that I am as frustrated about his as I am with the spoilers--once again there is no one to blame, so no point thinking about it. It really is a shame because I can tell the visuals would look great if not for those...circumstances.

The music was great, I liked most of the characters, it had an interesting concept, and the way it ended didn't disappoint me in any sense of the word--even if I feel it could've turned out better...maybe.

To sum it up: I really liked Guilty Crown, but for a couple reasons I wasn't able to see this in its full glory and that is a real shame. I don't like it as much as I could have but its not the show's fault. I will part ways with this series holding regrets in my heart, but I will keep in mind that it couldn't be helped--I simply rolled the dice with the wrong hand.